<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>If only I could watch your symmetry fade by airdeari</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666161">If only I could watch your symmetry fade</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari'>airdeari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Male My Unit | Reflet | Robin, Minor Liz | Lissa/Maribelle, Trans Male Character, being royalty is homophobic, even tinier shoutout to Libra who is also trans thank you</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:08:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,047</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26666161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/airdeari/pseuds/airdeari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Robin has watched Chrom make these leaps in logic—or completely independent of it, as the case may be—countless times now. That isn’t to say the leaps are wrong. In fact, more often than not, they’re right. Once Robin learned that, he started learning to take Chrom by the shoulder, look him in the eye, and talk it out until they’ve unraveled all the steps he skipped on his way to the truth.</p><p>Usually he does all of this because he wants to understand Chrom’s insight. He factors it into his assessment of the battlefield like just another line in his pages of his strategy notes: terrain surveys, troop counts and morale, equipment availability, enemy motive, Chrom’s gut feelings.</p><p>This time, he’s doing it because this time, just this one time, please, he wants Chrom to be wrong.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>If only I could watch your symmetry fade</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just some incredibly self-indulgent Chrobin for FE:A Trans Weekend. Be warned for mentions of trans male pregnancy. It’s okay because I’m trans. I have a permit.</p><p>Title is lifted from The Blue by Lo-ghost which you are highly encouraged to listen to on <a href="https://lo-ghost.bandcamp.com/track/the-blue">Bandcamp</a> or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1TW5fgXijOdbYHVX9jQrza?si=nTRM3MzvQqCNZBx6uSVv2w">Spotify</a>. Cheers!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Robin has watched Chrom make these leaps in logic—or completely independent of it, as the case may be—countless times now. At the blurry, groggy beginnings of his memory, Chrom was insisting to his fellow Shepherds that this amnesiac vagrant was telling the truth, and was a man who could be trusted. Chrom makes these leaps, but that isn’t to say the leaps are wrong. In fact, more often than not, they’re <em>right</em>. Once Robin learned that, he started learning to take Chrom by the shoulder, look him in the eye, and talk it out until they’ve unraveled all the steps he skipped on his way to the truth.</p><p>“Chrom,” Robin says, slow and resolute. He can’t take Chrom by the shoulder this time. Likewise, Chrom can’t look him in the eye.</p><p>Usually he does all of this because he wants to understand Chrom’s insight. He factors it into his assessment of the battlefield like it’s just another line in his pages of his strategy notes: terrain surveys, troop counts and morale, equipment availability, enemy motive, Chrom’s gut feelings.</p><p>“You lost me,” he says, just as he’s always said.</p><p>This time, he’s doing it because this time, just this one time, please, he wants Chrom to be wrong.</p><p>“Help me understand this,” he says. “Walk me through it.”</p><p>Chrom meets his gaze then, a resigned glance up from the corners of his eyes, but drops it just as quickly. Coming between them now, these familiar lines must sound patronizing.</p><p>“You know we can’t do this,” Chrom says, almost pleading.</p><p>It’s essentially the same thing he already said, albeit with a new leading clause that gives Robin something to dig into. “I <em>don’t </em>know,” he says. “Tell me.”</p><p>Chrom lets his head fall into his hands with a heavy sigh.</p><p>Admittedly, Robin does have some context around this. It’s not the first time Robin has been close to Chrom and been told, with or without words, to keep his distance. Robin always abides. The issue, the detail that snags on his understanding of the situation, is that he’s never the one who closes the distance between them in the first place.</p><p>He remembers the first time: huddled around a scouts’ map of the terrain, peering at minutiae by waning candlelight long after they had dismissed the scouts and fellow generals for the night. Chrom was supposed to return to his quarters at that time, too—though perhaps he was right to stay, already knowing Robin’s intellectual hunger would keep him from sleep until every option had been explored—yet he remained, and at the corner of the map, their shoulders brushed, then pressed together. Robin glanced up, but saw no recognition of significance in Chrom’s eyes, so he thought nothing of it. For twenty-odd minutes, this smattering of old fortress grounds at the edge of the terrain kept their arms in close contact that Chrom was so reluctant to break, he would point with his opposite hand, even when reaching across to landmarks on Robin’s other side. Then, when he was pointing farther than he could reach, when he <em>had </em>to switch hands, he slid behind Robin. His still-outstretched arm hooked around Robin, and he reached his other arm over Robin’s sloping shoulder to point. The discussion was seamless, uninterrupted, despite Robin suddenly sitting half-cradled against the prince of Ylisse’s chest as they talked strategy, so again, Robin thought nothing of it.</p><p>He did test the waters, though. At a thoughtful lull in conversation, he shifted his head so that he could feel the gentle heat and the light late-night stubble of Chrom’s cheek against his.</p><p>That was when Chrom’s words began to falter, when he pulled back with a stutter and pretended to be quite interested in something at the opposite side of the map, then moments later urged them both to retire for the evening, insisting that their minds would be fresher after rest.</p><p>Such moments kept happening. Every time, Chrom would pull himself away with clear reluctance, sometimes a murmured, “We shouldn’t.” Robin never pressed the issue, never pressed closer, but never stopped Chrom from drawing near when that irresistible gravity pulled them together.</p><p>This night, behind the tents, marks the first time Robin was the one to cross that now-dangerous threshold between the two of them. He thought the circumstances illustrated his intent plainly enough, that his arm on Chrom’s back was meant only as the comfort of a friend rather than anything more.</p><p>It was yesterday that the man watched his older sister fall to her death in front of him, for gods’ sake, and Robin just found him hiding in the woods in the dead of night pretending he wasn’t crying.</p><p>“I have,” Chrom starts, turning his head away, “a duty to my people. It’s not—it goes beyond my own wants and needs.”</p><p>His tone is different from the pained converation they had yesterday—the way he looked up at Robin through tears and asked, <em>What if I’m not worthy of her ideals?</em>—but he’s still contemplating the weight of the country suddenly resting upon his shoulders. There’s something more to it, something that was always there even when Emmeryn stood as Exalt, but has come to the forefront in the raw, gaping wound of her absence.</p><p>“The line of exalted blood,” he goes on, and now he’s actually <em>walking away </em>while talking to Robin, “has gone unbroken for a thousand years. I’ve always—” He shakes his head, changes the direction of his pacing, and starts again. “This isn’t new. I always knew that I—when Emmeryn ascended as Exalt, I knew she would never—it’s just not something she would do. And Lissa couldn’t—gods, I couldn’t put this burden upon her. She only has eyes for—”</p><p>He shakes his head a little and pauses in his steps at each break in his train of thought. Robin stops tailing him when it becomes clear that he’s pacing himself in crooked little circles rather than actually going anywhere. His train of thought is doing much the same thing.</p><p>“I’ve spoken too freely,” he mutters. “It’s not my place to speak on some of these matters.”</p><p>“Start at the beginning, Chrom,” Robin says gently. “Speak on what you can.”</p><p>“Don’t make me say it.”</p><p>The bitterness of his words strikes Robin deeper than he braced for. Chrom folds himself again, all but crumpling to the ground in his quiet huddle, fingers raking through his shaggy hair.</p><p>“But then, how can I understand?” Robin asks. “How can I help you?”</p><p>Chrom lifts his head just enough to point one weary eye up towards Robin. “I,” he starts weakly, “I… Robin, I…”</p><p>The weight in those words is so heavy that Robin can feel what’s supposed to come next, rather than what Chrom substitutes.</p><p>“I can’t do this to you.” Though Chrom stands, he turns his face back to the ground. “It’s not fair.”</p><p>“I’ve pulled us through plenty of unfair odds before,” Robin replies.</p><p>He feels every time their gaze connects because it’s like an electric connection, a flow of current suddenly switched on once the two of them are eye-to-eye. Chrom’s eyes are a subtle kind of blue, dulled by shades of warm grey that Robin could study for hours on end.</p><p>Robin notes every time that the gaze breaks, too, for the sudden shift to emptiness it brings, like the ringing static in one’s ears suddenly fizzling out and giving way to oppressive silence. Chrom’s lip twitches on his left side as he turns his face to the ground and takes a half-step away.</p><p>“Puzzle your way out of this one, then, tactician,” he challenges bitterly.</p><p><em>Gladly</em>, Robin thinks.</p><p>With his eyes to the stars, Chrom begins, “I am the only son of House Ylisse, and as such, I’m expected to take a wife and continue my family line, as have all my fathers before me for a millennium.”</p><p>He leaves a pause here, perfect for Robin to intervene with the conjecture he’s already drawn: “But you have no interest in… a <em>wife</em>?”</p><p>“No, that’s just the thing,” Chrom says heavily, bringing his hands back to pull at his hair. “I’ve loved women before, I have. So it <em>should </em>be me to bear this responsibility over my sisters. It’s closer to my nature than to theirs.”</p><p>One corner of Robin’s lip twitches up in a half-smile before he can help it. “Lissa would prefer to take a wife, as well?”</p><p>Chrom’s hands slip down his face until his eyes come into view in the spaces between his fingers, weighed down and seeking Robin with a meek sort of hope. “You’ve seen her with Maribelle,” he says simply, because that’s all that needs to be said.</p><p>“Couldn’t you just adopt a scion?” Robin asks, just to exhaust all options. “Rather than bearing one of your own blood, specifically. Surely—”</p><p>“That’s the thing—they’ve got to bear the Brand.” Chrom’s hands fall. His arms twist and his head swivels to examine the unique birthmark on his right shoulder. “That’s another reason it’s always had to be me over Lissa—her Brand never surfaced. There’s no knowing whether she could even pass it to a child if she had one. If I’m—gods, I’m the only person alive who bears the Brand of the Exalt, Robin, it’s my duty to pass it on to the next generation.” He clamps his hand over the mark on his arm as if it truly is a brand, scarred into his skin by red-hot iron. “It’s the only proof of our divine connection to Naga. If She only heeds the call of the Branded, and Ylisse in some distant future needs Her aid… I cannot end this bloodline.”</p><p>Robin drinks this information in like any knowledge-hungry amnesiac. It’s a denser, heavier excuse than he was expecting, but for the first instant, instead of remembering his empathy for the man who shoulders this heavy burden, he basks anew in the lore of this world he stumbled into.</p><p>“So?” Chrom asks while Robin ponders. “Where’s your strategy?” The bitterness has returned to his voice, but underneath that veneer, it’s tired. He’s world-weary, exhausted by the responsibility he carries by birthright. “Any bright ideas for how to get out of this one?”</p><p>Robin hums thoughtfully. “Surely there are some nontraditional routes I’d be curious to explore if necessary,” he says. “A loophole, maybe, to do with carrying the divine blood, if you were to preserve some of yours or find some other way of transferring it. Failing that, there could be alternate ways of childbearing. It all points to seeking out and speaking with highly specialized mages and clerics, and maybe even Naga Herself.”</p><p>“Why do you say <em>if necessary</em>?” Chrom prompts, narrowing his eyes.</p><p>It helps Robin stay on topic, rather than daydreaming about gathering the knowledge for knowledge’s sake, rather than for immediate need. “The thing is,” he says, “I don’t have all of the facts about the situation yet. You started at the beginning, but I’m not sure you made it to the end.”</p><p>He’s made it close enough and they both know it. The scathing look Chrom shoots Robin for this count of pedantry is worse than all the ones previous.</p><p>“Tell me how,” Robin persists, “your beginning leads to a story where, when we’re tired and hurting, we can’t lean on each other for support.”</p><p>He stands some six feet away when he holds out his hand to Chrom, palm up. Chrom stares into it for a dazed moment. When he looks up, pain pulls his lips into a grimace and his eyes into the same shape they took when he cried for his sister.</p><p>“Don’t make me say it,” he says again, much more softly than the first time, near to breaking.</p><p>Robin isn’t being selfish, or so he tells himself, when he says, “I have to be sure.” He just needs all of the facts before he can brainstorm the solution.</p><p>Chrom lifts his hand. It trembles and falters on its wary way towards Robin’s, and slows to a stop three inches above it. He looks up at Robin’s eyes, then back down to his palm, then back up. Despite his trepidation, something resolute flashes across his face as he takes a step forward and moves his hand well past Robin’s, following the path up his arm, coming instead to the place where his jawline meets his neck—</p><p>Robin has exactly one second to shudder under that touch, to revel in the difference between knowing and <em>experiencing</em>, falling helpless to the sensation of it all unfolding in real time right before his wide eyes, before Chrom leans down and crushes his lips in something desperate and hot and over before Robin can even taste it.</p><p>“Gods help me,” Chrom utters, already five feet away before Robin can find his way back to this realm from where he’s been floating in space. “I love you. I <em>love </em>you, Robin.”</p><p>Robin doesn’t find his voice before he tries to respond, “I love you, too,” and it comes out on cracked breath.</p><p>“But we can’t—” Whatever resolve Chrom had when he started speaking dies on his tongue when he turns around and sets eyes on Robin again, and Robin hates again how morbidly fascinated he is by the sight of death. “<em>I</em> can’t. I can’t be with you, Robin, I have—I have my country to think of.”</p><p>“I know that,” Robin insists. “I know Ylisse comes first. It does for me, too—I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d be happy to—no, <em>honored </em>to come second to Ylisse. Alright?”</p><p>“Alright?” Chrom repeats with an incredulous huff. “No, it’s not al—how does that even make sense, Robin? In what realm can you find a<em> second place </em>next to me having to take a wife and give the country its proper heirs?”</p><p>“In any common realm where a woman, perhaps of some noble bearing, herself, is expected to take a husband with as much reluctance as you would take a wife,” Robin says, “and would be happy to enter into a particular… arrangement with the prince of Ylisse for their mutual gain. He has his heirs, she has elevated status and unquestioned closeness to the crown family, and neither expects anything more of the other.”</p><p>A skeptical frown twists Chrom’s lip and brow as he considers the proposal with clear reluctance. “Does such a woman exist?”</p><p>“I was specifically thinking of Maribelle, actually,” Robin replies. “A ploy to station her in Ylisstol with Lissa.”</p><p>The night is too dark to see the change in color, but Chrom has certain tells in the rest of his face when it’s about to flush pink. His lips press stiffly together and he has to reign in his eyes from widening after the first flash. “I would not be able to look my sister in the eye,” Chrom says, “after—<em>conceiving heirs</em> with Maribelle.”</p><p>This is why Robin usually plots his tactics well ahead of time and reviews them with others before taking them to the battlefield.</p><p>“Oh,” he blurts. “I, uh—I admit, I didn’t think it through that far.”</p><p>“Gods, I wouldn’t be able to look <em>Maribelle </em>in the eye,” Chrom says into his hands, which are now smothering his blushing face.</p><p>“Alright—not Maribelle. Forget I said that,” Robin urges.</p><p>“I’m trying,” Chrom groans.</p><p>“I—” Robin scratches the back of his neck to stop the crawling as he considers his next tactic. “I have another idea, if you’re willing to—”</p><p>“If you haven’t finished thinking this one through, either, then please, just spare me.” Chrom drops one hand, but the other swipes across his face, bringing his arm to rub along his eyes. “I think false hope might be lethal.”</p><p>When Robin tries to get out his next words, he finds hollow space in his chest instead of air, and no sound comes out. It takes another few seconds to remember how to breathe.</p><p>“Alright,” he finally manages. “Not an idea, then. A story.”</p><p>Chrom lifts his head only enough to meet Robin’s eyes warily. “Will it manage to make this hurt even more?” he asks.</p><p>“I don’t think so,” Robin says. “I’m hoping it will ease your burden.”</p><p>“So it <em>is </em>another idea.”</p><p>Robin swallows as he considers. “Maybe so,” he admits.</p><p>But Chrom relents with a sigh, and settles himself on the ground to listen. Robin has one more moment to brainstorm his words as he slowly sits across from Chrom.</p><p>“When you found me in that field,” he begins, because he at least knows how to begin this story; it can’t begin anywhere else, “I had no memory of my past. You took me at my word, that I was who I said I was, and for that, I’m grateful.”</p><p>Robin is picking out his next words, but Chrom takes the pause in the story as a chance to give him a weak, but warm and fond smile, and Robin completely loses all of the words he had started to assemble, lets them slip out of his arms where he’s gathering them, into dumbstruck emptiness.</p><p>“I,” he resumes eventually, “I was… the very night that you found me, my first night in memory, when you lent me some sleepclothes… Well, to be honest, I was a little horrified when I changed out of what I was wearing.”</p><p>Chrom’s entire expression changes there, when he realizes this is not just a story, but a secret. His frown is more concern than shock. His upper body pitches forward as though he’s going to leap to his feet and grab Falchion as soon as Robin names an enemy to swing a sword at.</p><p>There is no enemy. Nothing to fear, except fear itself.</p><p>“While in my limited memory, I saw myself firmly as a man—and somehow, you all agreed to it,” Robin said in a low voice, “my body was… not? Not.”</p><p>Now Chrom’s frown goes from concerned to something softly puzzled. “Not a man’s body?” he asks.</p><p>“Not, er, not exactly. I mean, I suppose, if I’m a man, then surely it’s a man’s body, since it belongs to me.” Robin scratches his head and stares at his crossed legs. “But, well, it’s… more like the body you’d expect of a woman.”</p><p>“So… you’re transgender,” Chrom says.</p><p>Robin pulls apart the word into recognizable pieces, ascribes meanings to them, and puts them back together. It’s a nice word. It sits well with him.</p><p>“I guess, yeah,” Robin says. “That’s an easier way of saying it.”</p><p>Chrom quirks half a smile. “You’re not the first transgender person I’ve met, Robin,” he says. “Heavens, just days ago, we met Li—well, I shouldn’t presume.” He shakes his head. “I’ve already embarrassed myself in front of him one way or the other. The point being, you’re safe with me, friend.” His smile brightens. “And I thank you for sharing something so personal with me.”</p><p>Robin smiles back, maybe almost as bright. It’s all going to plan. “So you see,” he goes on, “how we shouldn’t have to let your need of an heir get between us?”</p><p>Evidently, Chrom did not see. If the way his smile droops and his eyes go into a daze in Robin’s general direction is any indication, he is seeing now. The silence between them is a thundering moment that grates both on Robin’s ears and on all sense of dramatic or even comedic timing.</p><p>“Wait,” Chrom finally says.</p><p>“I was waiting,” Robin says, shifting his legs.</p><p>“You’re,” Chrom is still struggling to form his words, “you’re not saying—”</p><p>“I think I could technically bear a child?” Robin’s voice squeaks at the end.</p><p>Chrom’s forward tilt presses even farther, so far that his legs come untangled and he has to plant his hands in the dirt in front of him to keep his balance. “I could <em>not </em>make you do that,” he states. “Gods, no. Robin, you would have to—that’s nine months of—”</p><p>“Only a few months out of the public eye, as long as I keep my robes loose.” Robin tugs at the two belts holding a sash that have kept his physique obscured so far. “If Maribelle’s willing to take the blame for it—I mean, if you—” He holds up finger quotes. “If you ‘marry’ her, and I could ‘marry’ Lissa, as far as the public knows—”</p><p>Chrom sags back to sit on his heels. “You… how long have you been plotting this?” he asks.</p><p>Robin blinks. “Er, just the past ten minutes, or so. However long it’s been since you told me about your need for an heir. There’s still a dozen holes in the plan I need to work out, but—”</p><p>“The hole in the plan is you would have to <em>carry a child</em>, for nine months,” Chrom protests, holding out his hands each in a tense, curved grip, like he wants to take Robin by the shoulders and shake him. “That is an ordeal for any <em>woman</em>. To compound the indignity of suffering it as a <em>man</em>—”</p><p>“No, that’s not the issue,” Robin insists, waving him off. “Honestly, now we’re <em>both </em>getting ahead of ourselves, thinking that far ahead. I don’t even know if this body can bear a child in the first place, but I definitely want to try.”</p><p>The innuendo hits him exactly when the last word leaves his mouth.</p><p>Chrom’s teeth clack together in the rush of trying to clamp his mouth shut, but not before a choked, high noise escapes his throat. His lips twitch with the effort of pressing them together, and his eyes are wide as bucklers.</p><p>Robin lets out a nervous laugh, scooting an inch or two back. “Still getting ahead of myself again, I guess. Whoops.”</p><p>“Did you,” Chrom grinds out, “<em>mean </em>that?”</p><p>“No? Well, maybe, but I didn’t intend to say it,” Robin confesses.</p><p>It turns out that the night is <em>not </em>too dark to see Chrom blush. There’s a deeper shade along his cheeks and nose and ears than the rest of his face.</p><p>“Actually, don’t you think our minds will be fresher after some rest?” Robin suggests, tongue most certainly in his cheek as he starts to rise from the ground. “Why don’t we each retire for the evening and sleep on these ideas?”</p><p>Chrom’s eyes flash. “Oh, you’re not getting away that easy—”</p><p>Before Robin can even turn around, let alone take off at a sprint for his tent, Chrom launches himself upright. Robin thinks for a second that he’s too close, that their heads are going to collide—but their lips do instead.</p><p>He’s strong, and he’s still hungry, but there’s something exhilarating in a different way when Chrom kisses this time. He’s not so desperate, and the way his lips travel and tease all over Robin’s mouth is more lighthearted than anything Robin’s ever felt from him before. Robin is so lost in the soft but demanding sensation against his lips, taking everything he’s willing to give—and that’s everything, <em>everything</em>—that he doesn’t realize it’s the way Chrom’s arms circle him that makes this kiss something he’ll remember for the rest of his life. He’s cradled by a bicep at his neck, a warm and steady grip around his waist, pulling him into the full firmness of Chrom’s chest. And Robin remembers to hold him back—squeezes, clings, melts.</p><p>When Chrom pulls back to breathe, his hand presses into Robin’s cheek like palms and faces were built to fit together, and thumbs were perfectly arced to run up and down the curve of soft skin, all because humans were meant to love each other.</p><p>“You’ve made your point, Robin,” Chrom exhales, sweet breath that tastes like his kisses. “I see you won’t take no for an answer. Not from me, not from fate, not from the very laws of nature.”</p><p>“You should have known that about me by now,” Robin replies.</p><p>“Perhaps.” Smirking, Chrom lets his head rest against Robin’s, forehead to forehead. “I’m counting on you, tactician.”</p><p>Robin tilts his face up to peck one last kiss for the night against Chrom’s lips. “I won’t let you down, Chrom.”</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>